Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Modern Quilting

Maybe I'm not completely a modern quilter but certainly a large part of me is in love with modern quilting.  I like simple designs is my home life;  furniture, art work, etc.  Seeing quilting move in that direction over the past few years has been fun.  I'm not sure if most of my quilts fit that category.  My newest quilt certainly does, at least in my mind.

The design started while watching the Quilt Show.  Ricky Tims showed how to make this split rail fence block.  It's a simple block with a fun little twist.  My head started designing this quilt as he is teaching this block.

I thought about the rail name in the block more than the fence.  I was raised in coal country in Eastern Kentucky.  One thing you notice, I didn't until I moved away, is coal dust is on everything.  I had a white car and it was amazing the amount of coal dust that you could wash off the car.  So dark gray seemed like the perfect background color.  I had a set of Kona modern quilt guild fat quarters and thought those bright colors would be perfect with the gray background.  Here is the completed top and I really do love this one!!
Now I just need to decide how to quilt it, seems a little more challenging with all the negative space. 

Happy Quilting
CDC

Sunday, July 22, 2012

MIA

Wow, time does fly past quite quickly.  Quilting took a break for a good bit of the summer but I'm catching the quilting bug again.  It started with a table runner for Mother's day.  I worked really hard and was loving the way the table runner turned out.
Other than messing up my first partial seam this went together quite quickly and I thought looked great.  I even loved my quilting, which is a first for me.  It's a simple pattern but still adds to the beauty of the piece.
Then it was time for the binding and it was Saturday night.  I have never struggled some much.  I took the binding off 4 times and redid it and it was still a mess.  I was ready to cut this table runner into little pieces and never think about it again.  At that moment I decided to just step away.  Here you can see some of the left over mistakes (really it's not nearly as bad as it felt that night)

Now that a few months have passed I think I could take this binding off, one more time and really take my time and finish what I still think is a great table runner. 

Happy Quilting
CDC